Music Foundations Program

Unravel electronic music’s origins, build your chops, learn musical language and theory, and make and play music the way you want. Students will develop a deeper understanding of the roots and lineage of a variety of electronic and dance music genres, strengthen their keyboard skills, and learn valuable music theory, deepening their creative practice and facilitating effective collaborations with musical partners.

What’s Included

(click each level for details)

Music Foundations Level 1: Pads & Rhythmic Theory

Music Foundations Level 2: Keys & Melodic Theory

Music Foundations Level 3: Electronic Music Appreciation

About This Program

The best producers, DJs, and musicians in the world strive to be well-rounded. So should you. In Dubspot’s Music Foundations Program, you’ll explore three major aspects of music: rhythmic theory, melodic theory, and critical listening.

Most pioneering early electronic musicians had years of conservatory training in theory and performance, but had access to very limited technologies. In today’s musical world, it’s the opposite: we have a powerful and versatile array of electronic music making tools at our fingertips, but often fall short in our theoretical understanding of how electronic music works.

Our Music Foundations program is designed to fill this gap and provide training in fundamental skills and concepts with the electronic musician, DJ, and producer in mind. In this course you’ll build your chops and learn the basics of musical language and theory so that you can make and play the music you want. You will also develop a deeper understanding of the roots and lineage of a variety of electronic and dance music genres, and explore compositional techniques and song structure. The weekly homework lessons for all three courses have been designed using Ableton Live, and along the way you’ll also learn the basics of Ableton and how to use it as a powerful tool to improve your musicianship in a variety of ways.

NYC + LA

Dubspot’s complete MF course load: three levels / 24 sessions

66 hours of hands-on instruction

Additional lab hours to work on assignments in Dubspot’s onsite facilities

24/7 access to Dubspot Online’s Music Foundations course videos

Access to the course videos for one year after course completion

ONLINE

Dubspot’s complete MF course load: three levels / 24 sessions

30-40 hours of high quality videos

Three hours of instructor-led chat sessions per week

Two hours of instructor-led text and video chat sessions per week

Individualized feedback on your work from instructor each week

Access to the course videos for one year after course completion

Weekly workload: 8-10 hours

What You’ll Need

A Mac or PC computer with a web browser and broadband Internet access

Ableton Live 9 Suite

Any MIDI keyboard (25 keys minimum, 49 or 61 keys preferred)

A MIDI drum pad controller with eight or more pads, such as the Akai MPD-18, Korg PadKontrol, or Native Instruments Maschine. If your controller keyboard has built-in drum pads, you may use these instead.

Please note: For Dubspot Online students, these items are required. For Dubspot NYC and LA students, they are recommended. All necessary computers and equipment are available to NYC and LA students in the classroom labs.